Bone tool analysis

This article examines the osseous technologies that can be created from animal skeletons. 'Tool' status is accorded to a skeletal element or fragment that has been modified subsequent to its isolation from the carcass. Such anthropic adaptation may be deliberate (e.g., through manufacture) and/or appear as a result of utilization, and is granted in instances where these details cannot otherwise be ascribed to alternative nonanthropic causes. Implements can display a combination of traces from both human and natural sources and as such the study of them involves both zooarchaeological (i.e., via animal ecology, hunting, and butchery) and technological analysis.... As an exemplar of this, the following discussion will present some of the similarities and differences that exist between osseous and lithic raw materials and tool-blank production, and will situate both in an operational sequence of animal procurement and processing. It will then give an account of principal manufacturing techniques, methods for establishing tool function, and the phenomenon of 'pseudo tools'. © 2008 Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc.

Efficiency assessment of electricity power generation on Ireland’s Single Electricity Market by Data Envelopment Analysis

The efficiency of generation plants is an important measure for evaluating the operating performance. The objective of this paper is to evaluate electricity power generation by conducting an All-Island-Generator-Efficiency-Study (AIGES) for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by utilising a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. An operational performance efficiency index is defined and pursued for the year 2008. The economic activities of electricity generation units/plants examined in this paper are characterized by numerous input and output indicators. Constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) type DEA models are employed in the analysis. Also a slacks based analysis indicates the level of inefficiency for each variable examined. The findings from this study provide a general ranking and evaluation but also facilitate various interesting efficiency comparisons between generators by fuel type.

Genome-wide gene pathway analysis of psychotic illness symptom dimensions based on a new schizophrenia-specific model of the OPCRIT

Empirically derived phenotypic measurements have the potential to enhance gene-finding efforts in schizophrenia. Previous research based on factor analyses of symptoms has typically included schizoaffective cases. Deriving factor loadings from analysis of only narrowly defined schizophrenia cases could yield more sensitive factor scores for gene pathway and gene ontology analyses. Using an Irish family sample, this study 1) factor analyzed clinician-rated Operational Criteria Checklist items in cases with schizophrenia only, 2) scored the full sample based on these factor loadings, and 3) implemented genome-wide association, gene-based, and gene-pathway analysis of these SCZ-based symptom factors (final N= 507). Three factors emerged from the analysis of the schizophrenia cases: a manic, a depressive, and a positive symptom factor. In gene-based analyses of these factors, multiple genes had q<. 0.01. Of particular interest are findings for PTPRG and WBP1L, both of which were previously implicated by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium study of SCZ; results from this study suggest that variants in these genes might also act as modifiers of SCZ symptoms. Gene pathway analyses of the first factor indicated over-representation of glutamatergic transmission, GABA-A receptor, and cyclic GMP pathways. Results suggest that these pathways may have differential influence on affective symptom presentation in schizophrenia.

Numerical analysis of impact events in a centrifugal impact pin mill

Milling is an important operation in many industries, such as mining and pharmaceutical. Although the comminution process during milling has been extensively studied, the material fragmentation mechanisms in a mill are still not well understood partly because of the lack of an understanding on the local stressing and dynamic information under operational conditions in mills. This paper presents a DEM simulation of particle dynamics and impact events in a centrifugal impact pin mill. The main focus is the statistical characteristics of the dominant stressing modes during the milling process. The frequency, velocity and force of the different impact events between particles and mill components, or between particles, are analysed. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

Energy and environmental forensic analysis for public buildings.

This paper outlines a forensic method for analysing the energy, environmental and comfort performance of a building. The method has been applied to a recently developed event space in an Irish public building, which was evaluated using on-site field studies, data analysis, building simulation and occupant surveying. The method allows for consideration of both the technological and anthropological aspects of the building in use and for the identification of unsustainable operational practice and emerging problems. The forensic analysis identified energy savings of up to 50%, enabling a more sustainable, lower-energy operational future for the building. The building forensic analysis method presented in this paper is now planned for use in other public and commercial buildings.

A method for analysing operational complexity in supply chains

This paper proposes a method for analysing the operational complexity in supply chains by using an entropic measure based on information theory. The proposed approach estimates the operational complexity at each stage of the supply chain and analyses the changes between stages. In this paper a stage is identified by the exchange of data and/or material. Through analysis the method identifies the stages where the operational complexity is both generated and propagated (exported, imported, generated or absorbed). Central to the method is the identification of a reference point within the supply chain. This is where the operational complexity is at a local minimum along the data transfer stages. Such a point can be thought of as a ‘sink’ for turbulence generated in the supply chain. Where it exists, it has the merit of stabilising the supply chain by attenuating uncertainty. However, the location of the reference point is also a matter of choice. If the preferred location is other than the current one, this is a trigger for management action. The analysis can help decide appropriate remedial action. More generally, the approach can assist logistics management by highlighting problem areas. An industrial application is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the method.

Rapid automated method for on-site determination of sulfadiazine in fish farming: a stainless steel veterinary syringe coated with a selective membrane of PVC serving as a potentiometric detector in a flow-injection-analysis system

Sulfadiazine is an antibiotic of the sulfonamide group and is used as a veterinary drug in fish farming. Monitoring it in the tanks is fundamental to control the applied doses and avoid environmental dissemination. Pursuing this goal, we included a novel potentiometric design in a flow-injection assembly. The electrode body was a stainless steel needle veterinary syringe of 0.8-mm inner diameter. A selective membrane of PVC acted as a sensory surface. Its composition, the length of the electrode, and other flow variables were optimized. The best performance was obtained for sensors of 1.5-cm length and a membrane composition of 33% PVC, 66% onitrophenyloctyl ether, 1% ion exchanger, and a small amount of a cationic additive. It exhibited Nernstian slopes of 61.0 mV decade-1 down to 1.0×10-5 mol L-1, with a limit of detection of 3.1×10-6 mol L-1 in flowing media. All necessary pH/ionic strength adjustments were performed online by merging the sample plug with a buffer carrier of 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-1-piperazineethanesulfonic acid, pH 4.9. The sensor exhibited the advantages of a fast response time (less than 15 s), long operational lifetime (60 days), and good selectivity for chloride, nitrite, acetate, tartrate, citrate, and ascorbate. The flow setup was successfully applied to the analysis of aquaculture waters. The analytical results were validated against those obtained with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry procedures. The sampling rate was about 84 samples per hour and recoveries ranged from 95.9 to 106.9%.

Return on assets in the Tobacco Industry analysis of the four main Tobacco Manufacturers

This paper studies operating profitability drivers in the Four Main Tobacco Manufacturers for the period 2004-2014. The operating profitability is analyzed as return on assets (ROA) based on the DuPont Extended Model breakdown in degree of operational risk, gross sales margin and assets turnover. The sources of ROA are market share and price strategies appraised through the drivers: firm-size, global value and strategic choices. Using consolidated data, results suggest that firm-size and global value holds a positive relationship with ROA. Also innovation through less harmful tobacco products can lead to better ROA despite no correlation between R&D and ROA.

Major Sport Event Operational Planning Issues and Strategies: A Multi-Case Delphi Study

This study examined the operational planning, implementation and execution issues of major sport events, as well as the mitigation and management strategies used to address these issues, with the aim of determining best practices in sport event operational planning. The three Research Questions were: 1) What can previous major sport events provide to guide the operational management of future events? 2) What are the operational issues that arise in the planning and execution of a major sport event, how are they mitigated and what are the strategies used to deal with these issues? 3) What are the best practices for sport event operational planning and how can these practices aid future events? Data collection involved a modified Delphi technique that consisted of one round of in-depth interviews followed by two rounds of questionnaires. Both data collection and analysis were guided by an adaptation of the work of Parent, Rouillard & Leopkey (2011) with a focus on previously established issue and strategy categories. The results provided a list of Top 26 Prominent Issues and Top 17 Prominent Strategies with additional issue-strategy links that can be used to aid event managers producing future major sport events. The following issue categories emerged as having had the highest impact on previous major sport events that participants had managed: timing, funding and knowledge management. In addition, participants used strategies from the following categories most frequently: other, formalized agreements and communication.

Estimating the Tobit Model with Serial Correlation: an Operational Approach

Several Authors Have Discussed Recently the Limited Dependent Variable Regression Model with Serial Correlation Between Residuals. the Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimators Obtained by Ignoring Serial Correlation Altogether, Have Been Shown to Be Consistent. We Present Alternative Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood Estimators Which Are Obtained by Ignoring Serial Correlation Only Selectively. Monte Carlo Experiments on a Model with First Order Serial Correlation Suggest That Our Alternative Estimators Have Substantially Lower Mean-Squared Errors in Medium Size and Small Samples, Especially When the Serial Correlation Coefficient Is High. the Same Experiments Also Suggest That the True Level of the Confidence Intervals Established with Our Estimators by Assuming Asymptotic Normality, Is Somewhat Lower Than the Intended Level. Although the Paper Focuses on Models with Only First Order Serial Correlation, the Generalization of the Proposed Approach to Serial Correlation of Higher Order Is Also Discussed Briefly.

Operational Flexibility: A Model for Effective Project Management

The aim of this study is to investigate the role of operational flexibility for effective project management in the construction industry. The specific objectives are to: a) Identify the determinants of operational flexibility potential in construction project management b) Investigate the contribution of each of the determinants to operational flexibility potential in the construction industry c) Investigate on the moderating factors of operational flexibility potential in a construction project environment d) Investigate whether moderated operational flexibility potential mediates the path between predictors and effective construction project management e) Develop and test a conceptual model of achieving operational flexibility for effective project management The purpose of this study is to findout ways to utilize flexibility inorder to manage uncertain project environment and ultimately achieve effective project management. In what configuration these operational flexibility determinants are demanded by construction project environment in order to achieve project success. This research was conducted in three phases, namely: (i) exploratory phase (ii) questionnaire development phase; and (iii) data collection and analysis phase. The study needs firm level analysis and therefore real estate developers who are members of CREDAI, Kerala Chapter were considered. This study provides a framework on the functioning of operational flexibility, offering guidance to researchers and practitioners for discovering means to gain operational flexibility in construction firms. The findings provide an empirical understanding on kinds of resources and capabilities a construction firm must accumulate to respond flexibly to the changing project environment offering practitioners insights into practices that build firms operational flexibility potential. Firms are dealing with complex, continuous changing and uncertain environments due trends of globalization, technical changes and innovations and changes in the customers’ needs and expectations. To cope with the increasingly uncertain and quickly changing environment firms strive for flexibility. To achieve the level of flexibility that adds value to the customers, firms should look to flexibility from a day to day operational perspective. Each dimension of operational flexibility is derived from competences and capabilities. In this thesis only the influence on customer satisfaction and learning exploitation of flexibility dimensions which directly add value in the customers eyes are studied to answer the followingresearch questions: “What is the impact of operational flexibility on customer satisfaction?.” What are the predictors of operational flexibility in construction industry? .These questions can only be answered after answering the questions like “Why do firms need operational flexibility?” and “how can firms achieve operational flexibility?” in the context of the construction industry. The need for construction firms to be flexible, via the effective utilization of organizational resources and capabilities for improved responsiveness, is important because of the increasing rate of changes in the business environment within which they operate. Achieving operational flexibility is also important because it has a significant correlation with a project effectiveness and hence a firm’s turnover. It is essential for academics and practitioners to recognize that the attainment of operational flexibility involves different types namely: (i) Modification (ii) new product development and (iii) demand management requires different configurations of predictors (i.e., resources, capabilities and strategies). Construction firms should consider these relationships and implement appropriate management practices for developing and configuring the right kind of resources, capabilities and strategies towards achieving different operational flexibility types.

The ERA-40 re-analysis

ERA-40 is a re-analysis of meteorological observations from September 1957 to August 2002 produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in collaboration with many institutions. The observing system changed considerably over this re-analysis period, with assimilable data provided by a succession of satellite-borne instruments from the 1970s onwards, supplemented by increasing numbers of observations from aircraft, ocean-buoys and other surface platforms, but with a declining number of radiosonde ascents since the late 1980s. The observations used in ERA-40 were accumulated from many sources. The first part of this paper describes the data acquisition and the principal changes in data type and coverage over the period. It also describes the data assimilation system used for ERA-40. This benefited from many of the changes introduced into operational forecasting since the mid-1990s, when the systems used for the 15-year ECMWF re-analysis (ERA-15) and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) re-analysis were implemented. Several of the improvements are discussed. General aspects of the production of the analyses are also summarized. A number of results indicative of the overall performance of the data assimilation system, and implicitly of the observing system, are presented and discussed. The comparison of background (short-range) forecasts and analyses with observations, the consistency of the global mass budget, the magnitude of differences between analysis and background fields and the accuracy of medium-range forecasts run from the ERA-40 analyses are illustrated. Several results demonstrate the marked improvement that was made to the observing system for the southern hemisphere in the 1970s, particularly towards the end of the decade. In contrast, the synoptic quality of the analysis for the northern hemisphere is sufficient to provide forecasts that remain skilful well into the medium range for all years. Two particular problems are also examined: excessive precipitation over tropical oceans and a too strong Brewer-Dobson circulation, both of which are pronounced in later years. Several other aspects of the quality of the re-analyses revealed by monitoring and validation studies are summarized. Expectations that the second-generation ERA-40 re-analysis would provide products that are better than those from the firstgeneration ERA-15 and NCEP/NCAR re-analyses are found to have been met in most cases. © Royal Meteorological Society, 2005. The contributions of N. A. Rayner and R. W. Saunders are Crown copyright.

Roles in construction projects: analysis and terminology

Standard form contracts are typically developed through a negotiated consensus, unless they are proffered by one specific interest group. Previously published plans of work and other descriptions of the processes in construction projects tend to focus on operational issues, or they tend to be prepared from the point of view of one or other of the dominant interest groups. Legal practice in the UK permits those who draft contracts to define their terms as they choose. There are no definitive rulings from the courts that give an indication as to the detailed responsibilities of project participants. The science of terminology offers useful guidance for discovering and describing terms and their meanings in their practical context, but has never been used for defining terms for responsibilities of participants in the construction project management process. Organizational analysis enables the management task to be deconstructed into its elemental parts in order that effective organizational structures can be developed. Organizational mapping offers a useful technique for reducing text-based descriptions of project management roles and responsibilities to a comparable basis. Research was carried out by means of a desk study, detailed analysis of nine plans of work and focus groups representing all aspects of the construction industry. No published plan of work offers definitive guidance. There is an enormous amount of variety in the way that terms are used for identifying responsibilities of project participants. A catalogue of concepts and terms (a “Terminology”) has been compiled and indexed to enable those who draft contracts to choose the most appropriate titles for project participants. The purpose of this terminology is to enable the selection and justification of appropriate terms in order to help define roles. The terminology brings an unprecedented clarity to the description of roles and responsibilities in construction projects and, as such, will be helpful for anyone seeking to assemble a team and specify roles for project participants.

Building operational energy consumption of Chongqing and its exergy assessment

Building energy consumption(BEC) accounting and assessment is fundamental work for building energy efficiency(BEE) development. In existing Chinese statistical yearbook, there is no specific item for BEC accounting and relevant data are separated and mixed with other industry consumption. Approximate BEC data can be acquired from existing energy statistical yearbook. For BEC assessment, caloric values of different energy carriers are adopted in energy accounting and assessment field. This methodology obtained much useful conclusion for energy efficiency development. While the traditional methodology concerns only on the energy quantity, energy classification issue is omitted. Exergy methodology is put forward to assess BEC. With the new methodology, energy quantity and quality issues are both concerned in BEC assessment. To illustrate the BEC accounting and exergy assessment, a case of Chongqing in 2004 is shown. Based on the exergy analysis, BEC of Chongqing in 2004 accounts for 17.3% of the total energy consumption. This result is quite common to that of traditional methodology. As far as energy supply efficiency is concerned, the difference is highlighted by 0.417 of the exergy methodology to 0.645 of the traditional methodology.

Warranty cost analysis for products with a dormant state

Most building services products are installed while a building is constructed, but they are not operated until the building is commissioned. The warranty of the products may cover the time starting from their installation to the end of the warranty period. Prior to the commissioning of the building, the products are at a dormant mode (i.e., not operated) but protected by the warranty. For such products, both the usage intensity and the failure patterns are different from those with continuous usage intensity and failure patterns. This paper develops warranty cost models for repairable products with a dormant mode from both the manufacturer's and buyer's perspectives. Relationships between the failure patterns at the dormant mode and at the operational mode are also discussed. Numerical examples and sensitivity analysis are used to demonstrate the applicability of the methodology derived in the paper.